Forum:Historical article improvements
RobertM525 recent concerns about the storyline article has, unfortunately, reminded me of a long standing issue present in the episode articles. At the moment, the episode articles are geared almost solely to recapping events as they happened in the game, and only from in the game. As such, they do not present a full record of their historical periods, which is what the "Storyline" article implies they do. I think we need to regear the episode articles as general history articles. We need to finish pulling out the mission descriptions into separate articles, and then integrate info from the novels. We definitely need to, when such info is available, provide political, social, and economic context to events. I think SC:G:Nova can do that a bit for Episode I. SC:QoB (which I have not read) might be able to provide some for the protoss and zerg for Episode I and II In terms of article organization, I think we'll need to discard separating sections by mission. The level 1 headers will encapsulate a general period of an episode, as they do now. The level 2 headers will encapsulate campaigns (or other notable sub-periods) and section(s) providing context. As the episodes will likely serve as poor-man's portals to other subjects, we'll need to be clever in mentioning seemingly 'minor' events. For example, we'll probably want to drop in a mention (and links!) of Nova's kidnapping and recruitment into the Ghost Program in Episode I. That sort of thing. Once we come up with something suitable for Episode I (I sense a long lived dev page...) we can probably apply it to the others, and even the “early history” articles (those might be easier since their scope is more limited.) I think we still need blurbs for the “early history” articles in the “Storyline” article. As for the post-Brood War articles, I don't know how much we can do for those. Since my impression is that the mangas and the like tend not to go out of their way to reveal dates, integrating those together is probably a lost cause. - Meco (talk, ) 14:47, July 22, 2010 (UTC) :I disagree a little about changing the episode articles, actually. I think they should remain devoted to just explaining what happens within the campaigns themselves. Information from other sources has already ended up in the episode articles, often causing "muddling". This is a particularly important issue when information from an episode has undergone massive retcons (eg the Queen of Blades novel literally erasing missions). :We've written a large quantity of "battle" articles (for lack of a better word) and they're used instead of episode articles (for the most part)* in articles such as timeline, Great War, etc. The StarCraft storyline article has not undergone that treatment, and instead still links to episodes. I need to check on StarCraft universe to see if it's been "fixed" as well. : *Of course, a lot of battle articles have not been written, and still link to sections within episode articles. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:01, July 22, 2010 (UTC) "I think we still need blurbs for the “early history” articles in the “Storyline” article." - Meco (talk, contribs) 14:47, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Yes. I had forgotten to write something for that. "As for the post-Brood War articles, I don't know how much we can do for those. Since my impression is that the mangas and the like tend not to go out of their way to reveal dates, integrating those together is probably a lost cause. - Meco (talk, contribs) 14:47, July 22, 2010 (UTC)" I agree. The StarCraft II introduction article divided events by species/faction rather than by date. Although for a few things (Resurrection IV, Urona Sigma) there's a lot of overlap, and stuff gets repeated. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:10, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Ach, I forgot you recently gave the Great War and Brood War articles a heroic push over the wall. In that case, we just need to relink the StarCraft storyline to those articles, and most of the problems will go -poof-. - Meco (talk, ) 15:19, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Yes , events must be divided by factions or species rather by date , because it is easier to find a certain event with this mechanics . Meco's solution seems excellent . -User:Andra2404 :To some extent, I think that [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Storyline the Mass Effect Wiki provides a decent model] for what, IMO, the storyline page here ought to be like. Not insofar as how they've split the Storyline page into two different articles. Personally, I'm not digging that, but I could see the argument that could be made for it (it certainly hides spoilers well, as ME1 and ME2 information is on separate pages) and how it could be applicable to Starcraft as well. The best part about this page, though—and what makes it most applicable to this Wiki—is that it tells, narrative-style, the story of the Mass Effect games and novels in a way that isn't heavily dependent on the game's mechanics (i.e., missions). RobertM525 01:45, July 23, 2010 (UTC) ::I'm looking at that Mass Effect page now. ::Have you seen the new page? Instead of linking to the episode articles, it now links to the war articles. Great War and Brood War (conflict) read a bit like the Mass Effect storyline article. (More like a history page on wikipedia.) PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 01:56, July 23, 2010 (UTC)